ABSTRACT
The preceding chapters discussed shifts in the Bank’s urban lending programs, as well as the various forces that influenced its urban agenda. As shown in the last chapter, by the mid-1980s, the Bank had moved away from a project-by-project approach toward a perspective that examined cities in their national macroeconomic contexts. The Bank argued that the government’s role ought to be transformed from that of a “provider” of urban services to that of a “supporter” or “enabler” that served as a liaison between the private sector and self-help groups. World Bank urban financial specialist Bill Dillinger argued that “policy change and non-project lending” ought to constitute the Bank’s approach to urban problems (Tuck-Primdahl 1991: 7). Michael Cohen, former chief of the Urban Department, observed that the shift “mark[ed] a departure from the past.” According to Cohen, the primary objective of this new policy was to “move beyond isolated projects that emphasized housing and residential infrastructure toward integrated citywide efforts that promote[d] urban productivity and reduce[d] constraints on efficiency” (cited in Tuck-Primdahl 1991: 1). The strategies of the 1980s called for “greater emphasis on policy, urban management, institutional development and training.”1 With particular reference to housing, the Bank’s new urban agenda emphasized market reforms and attempted to restructure local government and official housing agencies’ finances according to market principles.
